Abu al-Ma'ali al-Haziri
Abū al-Maʿālī Saʿd ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥaẓīrī, often known as Dallāl al-kutub (‘the Book Merchant’) (fl. twelfth century CE), was a book-merchant, scribe and littérateur from Iraq. He is noted for composing the first known Arabic text entirely devoted to riddles, the Kitāb al-iʿjāz fī l-aḥājī wa-l-alghāz (Inimitable Book on Quizzes and Riddles).
Life
Al-Ḥaẓīrī's epithet records his birthplace, the village of al-Ḥaẓīra, to the north of Baghdad. He moved to Baghdad early in his life.[1]: 251 There he came to establish a bookshop at Bāb Badr in Baghdad's book market, which became such a nodal point in the intellectual life of the city that it became the setting for al-Maqāma al-Baġdādiyya by al-Wahrānī (d. 575/1179); this work speaks of 'the shop of the sheikh Abū l-Maʿālī (…) He is the orchard of erudition, the archive of the Arabs (…) he has a share in every branch of learning'.[1]: 252
At one time or another, al-Ḥaẓīrī travelled to Syria and thence on hajj to Medina and Mecca, but seems otherwise to have been based in Baghdad.[1]: 252
Al-Ḥaẓīrī's teachers included al-Jawāliqī (d. 539/1144-45), Ibn al-Shajarī (d. 542/1147-48), and his wide network of associates included the preacher Abū Manṣūr al-ʿAbbādī (491-547/1098-1152-53), the ascetic Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Fāriqī (d. 564/1168-69), the noted poet Ibn Aflaḥ (d. c. 535-37/1141-43), the scribe ʿImād ad-Dīn al-Iṣbahānī (519-97/1125-1201), the physician al-Ḥakīm al-Maghribī (d. 549/1154), and the grammarian Ibn al-Khashshāb (492-567/1099-1172).[1]: 251–52 His patrons included the caliphs al-Muqtafī (r. 530-55/1136-60) and al-Mustanjid (r. 555-66/1160-70).[1]: 251
Works
In honour of the writing of his friend Abū Manṣūr al-ʿAbbādī, Al-Ḥaẓīrī reportedly composed the compilation al-Nūr al-bādī min kalām al-ʿAbbādī, along with al-Kalim al-Fāriqiyya fī l-kilam al-Ilāhiyya in honour of Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Fāriqī. To caliph al-Muqtafī he dedicated the work Lumaḥ al-mulaḥ (Sparkles of Witticisms), an anthology focusing on examples of paronomasia from both verse and prose. Almost entirely lost, too, is his Zīnat al-dahr wa-ʿaṣrat ahl al-ʿaṣr (The Adornment of the Age and the Contemporaries' Very Best), but it is known to have influenced al-Iṣbahānī's Kharīda. Twenty private epistles survive, their style also characterised by paronomasia do survive, along with a number of poems, mostly epigrams (and especially love-epigrams).[1]: 252–53
One work of Al-Ḥaẓīrī's survives in whole, however: his Kitāb al-iʿjāz fī l-aḥājī wa-l-alghāz bi-rasm al-amīr Qaymāz (Inimitable Book on Quizzes and Riddles, Composed for the Emir Qaymāz), commissioned by and dedicated to emir Mujāhid al-Dīn Qaymāz al-Zaynī (d. 595/1198-99) of which four manuscripts are known. Although some poems from it have been printed, as of 2019 the work had never been edited as a whole. According to the preface, 'upon his return from the hajj, Mujāhid ad-Dīn Qaymāz, who during his trip had been entertained with riddles as his fellow-travellers avidly engaged in riddle contests, searched for a book on this subject and having found none, commissioned al-Ḥaẓīrī to compose this work'.[1]: 254